Mobile payments have been around for a long time now, and they’re far from something new. The problem with mobile payments however – as Google found out with the roll out of Google Wallet – is that big, entrenched, industries are unlikely to change quickly. With the rise of Apple Pay and Samsung Pay however, many retailers, banks and card issuers have been given no choice but to give in to consumer demand, and so mobile payments have steadily become available in more parts of the globe. In South Korea, Samsung’s home turf, it appears as though Samsung Pay has become the country’s most popular mobile payments system, according to a new report.
A South Korean mobile app and trend ranker, WiseApp, has put Samsung Pay in the lead with a reported 2.59 Million users in the region, beating second place app card from Shinhan with 1.5 Million users and Hyundai Card with 1.23 Million users. These are small numbers, to be sure, but considering the service only launched less than a year or so ago now in South Korea, this isn’t bad going, but the service was still only used 41 times per user on average during the month of March. This goes to show that while there’s certainly room for improvement, Samsung sure have the upper-hand in South Korea. What’s interesting to note however, is that iOS was exempt from this report by WiseApp due to its low portion of market share in South Korea.
Samsung Pay is now available in North America, China and soon Singapore as well as South Korea, but has yet to expand to Europe. A launch in Europe is scheduled for some time soon, and hopefully Samsung will be able to offer the same sort of promotion and push that it did in North America. Android Pay has recently become available as well, but it appears that, for right now at least, Samsung Pay is the one payments service that’s growing the quickest and could become one of the largest in the world before long. Apple Pay will continue to be Samsung’s main rival in this emerging sector, but it doesn’t appear as though there’s too much for them to worry about just yet.